We need to do more than just believe all women.
This week, we wallow in the incalculable pain caused by a society that refuses to shoulder the burden of change for victims and victim-survivors, more often than not, women. Change equals action.
Australia confronts a harsh reality: our collective inaction perpetuates a cycle of violence that harms us all. Many choose to disengage, keeping stories of violence at arm’s length despite statistics showing its alarming proximity to our own lives. Others find solace by taking comfort in the words of victims. Worse yet, we demonise perpetrators as isolated monsters rather than inevitable products of our toxic cultural systems that encouraged their violence.
The roots of both sexual and physical violence lie in our failure to comprehensively teach boys and men empathy and respect. As Teach Us Consent wrote yesterday:
“In order to help prevent sexual assault, we must embed empathy and respect in boys and men to a far higher degree than we embed in them a sense of entitlement to other’s bodies”.
This lack of empathy fuels a spectrum of harm, from everyday aggression and sexual harassment to acts of extreme violence.
While the crimes of Bruce Lehrmann and Joel Cauchi differ, they originate in the same toxic well: the patriarchy. This system instils in men a belief that we must always dominate, and it fosters an inability to resolve external or internal turmoil healthily. We are often pressured to equate vulnerability with weakness and instructed to ‘man up’ when expressing normal emotions. Consequently, violence becomes an acceptable outlet for internal conflict—a tool amplified and normalised by harmful cultural tropes. Rejection, especially when men’s sense of self is tied to a presumed right to women’s bodies, can trigger this harmful worldview, a view that becomes action, ultimately fueling sexual assault and violence against women.
Many of us actively resist harmful expectations, but often, it is an uphill battle and calling out the harmful behaviours of our mates or family members can seem more trouble than it’s worth. Our collective inability as men to take responsibility for how we can influence each other (positively or negatively) unsurprisingly has led to the troubling rise of anti-feminism among Gen Z and Millennial men, many of whom doubt the existence of ‘toxic masculinity’ and idolise figures like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson. This scepticism coincides with a growing reluctance to believe survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.
The civil findings in the Bruce Lehrmann and Channel 10 case may offer a sense of vindication, and headlines like “RAPIST AND LOSER” might feel good for many of us to see. It’s important to remember the many years of damage that headlines have caused to other victims who, as a result, never come forward. It’s vital to remember the damage done by Lehrmann’s sense of entitlement and arrogance – damage that extends far beyond Higgins (who deserves our admiration, our thanks and unending sympathy). The gruelling court case and relentless media scrutiny will undoubtedly deter countless other women and girls from coming forward with their own experiences of assault, ultimately protecting current and future perpetrators. That is a horrible net loss for Australia, as good as this win may feel.
There is a profound emotional toll such cases inflict on victims nationwide. This highlights the supermassive imbalances in the fears men and women carry through our lives. As mentioned before, for men, often our biggest fear is one of rejection—whether from a woman we’re interested in or by our mates for challenging toxic masculinity. But for women, fear is relentless. It’s the fear of becoming a victim of violence (for many, repeatedly) inflicted by a male stranger, a male friend, a male partner, or a male family member. This fear is magnified by the dread that those they confide in, society as a whole, and even the courts won’t believe them. At the heart of our collective failure to protect women is a refusal to simply believe them.
Despite its problematic implications, Scott Morrison's now infamous "think of your daughters" comment in the wake of Brittany Higgins initial allegations (now found to be true in civil court) does raise a question worth considering:
If someone you loved told you they had been assaulted, would you believe them?
"Jenny and I spoke last night and she said to me, you have to think about this as a father. What would you want to happen if it were our girls? Jenny has a way of clarifying things. Always has. And so, as I’ve reflected on that overnight and listened to Brittany and what she had to say.” - Scott Morrison
Optimistically, we should never need to imagine our loved ones as victims before we believe and support all women. If this hypothetical is what it takes for some men to understand "believe all women," maybe that’s okay — for now, but it does underscore the severity of the problem. While real-world experiences of many women show that optimism isn't enough.
How then can we expect survivors to trust a system where "innocent until proven guilty," while vital for justice, often casts doubt from the outset? This misapplication erodes the foundation of our legal system, deterring victims from reporting and allowing perpetrators to act with impunity.
Harmful myths further silence survivors, such as the belief that false accusations are rampant. A 2017 survey revealed shocking public misconceptions: 1 in 10 Australians believed women were ‘probably lying’ about sexual assault if they didn’t report it immediately. Additionally, 2 in 5 agreed that ‘it was common for sexual assault accusations to be used as a way of getting back at men.’ But the statistics clearly show a different story...
In Australia,
2 million adults have experienced at least one incident of sexual assault since age 15.
1 in 6 women (17%) have experienced sexual assault since age 15
compared to 1 in 25 men (4.3%)
97% of sexual assault offenders recorded by police in Australia are male;
Meanwhile, studies show false accusations are rare, sitting between 2-10%.
To make matters worse, data out of England and Wales show an estimated:
8,000 men are raped each year, compared to only 35 prosecutions for false rape allegations
Meaning men are roughly 230 times more likely to be victims of rape than to be falsely accused.
Further to this, most survivors of sexual assault don’t even report the crime to the police. It is estimated that only around 15-35% of sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement. Of those cases reported to the police, only a fraction resulted in prosecution. In England and Wales, for example, there were around 55,000 reports of rape in 2019-2020, but only 2,102 prosecutions and 1,439 convictions. Once again, at the heart of our collective failure to protect women is a refusal to simply believe them.
And then there’s domestic violence. Independent MP Zoe Daniel cited in Parliament that already this year, 75 Australian women and 11 children have been murdered, primarily by men they knew. Last year, a man I knew killed a woman who rejected him before killing himself. Horrendous violence spawned from the inability to deal with the rejection of defining self-worth as something that comes from within rather than from others. Something I, too, have struggled with for most of my life; for a time, that man walked the same path I had. Could I have been capable of such a horrible crime, too, had things been different? It’s an uncomfortable thought, and the uncomfortable answer is yes, all men are capable in the most simplistic sense - women know this, but most men would rather ignore this than change their behaviours to moderate the risk they might pose.
In the aftermath of news of that murder, in my mourning and processing, I wrote on Instagram:
“Women don’t need our protection. They need to not be endangered by us. That is the responsibility of all men. All men must reduce the danger we pose. We can’t do that if we don’t change, and we can’t change if we don’t listen. If your reaction to news of a woman’s murder is to say “not all men”… You are only signalling that you are more likely to be one of those men. If you can’t see that women don’t know which men and therefore, it could be any man they encounter… you are only signalling you’re more likely to be one of those men”.
This resulted in a horrible barrage of toxic comments below, so much so that I genuinely came to believe I had done the wrong thing and only made things worse. Truthfully, I am still not 100% sure. I guess that’s the goal?
What I do know for sure is that the key to breaking this cycle is radical change on multiple fronts. First, we need an unshakable belief in women’s experiences. This requires a comprehensive reform in the justice system to ensure the sensitivity and safety of those who come forward. Secondly, men need to step up and be a part of the conversation, in many areas we should lead it, be more than simply a part of the solution, because we are the solution. Thirdly, we must invest in mental health, providing accessible resources, destigmatising help-seeking, and creating safe environments for men, women and people of all gender identities to process our emotions and our traumas. It’s imperative that in these discussions around violence against women and violence perpetrated by men, we don’t reinforce harmful gender binaries and exclude others from the conversation. Gender binaries, after all, have a lot to answer for in this context.
Men have a crucial role in dismantling toxic masculinity. Challenging archaic stereotypes and promoting emotional openness breaks down the barriers that lead to isolation and violence. The goal for all of us should be to be the best person we can be, a whole person, a good person, and the first step we should take toward that, as men, is to reject the harmful stereotypes of masculinity and femininity by embracing and celebrating our respective individuality. By fostering mutual support and encouraging help-seeking behaviour, men can help ensure a happier, healthier — and importantly safer society for everyone.
At the same time, we cannot continue to use individual men’s mental health as a way of deflecting blame or responsibility. Media portrayals often excuse crimes by white men with narratives of mental illness, subtly excusing the behaviour. Despite Joel Cauchi’s documented history of instability, his mental health struggles have already become the central explanation for his violence only after his horrific crime spree. This emphasis subtly shifts the focus away from personal and societal responsibility. His father’s statement, “To you, he’s a monster, but to me, he was a sick boy,” while perhaps well-intentioned, risks normalising extreme violence by framing it as an inevitable consequence of mental illness–a harmful stereotype often levied against male perpetrators.
While we must always address mental health, the media’s overemphasis on it downplays individual agency and ignores underlying societal causes. While improving overall access to mental health support is imperative, so too is encouraging individual responsibility to utilise that help. We are responsibile for our own lives, we cannot expect others to save us, too often we do. The real tragedy is that the slow-motion decline leading to Cauchi’s crimes became a national debate only after the violence was carried out. A holistic, compassionate society would have found ways to prevent this crime, thereby preventing innocent people from becoming victims, long before the inclination of such violence had festered in that man’s mind.
The Guardian reports that while the motive is not yet known police commissioner Karren Webb has said:
“It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to detectives that seems to be an area of interest – that the offender had focused on women and avoided the men,”
This factor must not be forgotten.
📺 https://twitter.com/zdaniel/status/1779993945076101525
In conclusion, I return to the words of MP Zoe Daniel:
”Violence against women is a men’s problem. Men, today I ask you to be the ones to step in and to know the steps you can take to move from being a bystander to part of the solution… we need men to show leadership to bring the change.”.
I’m heading that call.
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-men-are-more-likely-to-be-raped-than-be-falsely-accused-of-rape
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/from-an-aspiring-teacher-keen-to-meet-others-to-a-murderous-loner-20240415-p5fju0.html